Yes, all the floatplanes on the Bombardment taffy were set to Night mode and Recon, but as you see from the Combat Report only the E8N2 Dave unit on one of the battleships actually "spotted".

But the detection level was very high. I had basically swarmed the island in the day phase prior with almost 80 aircraft on recon. I lost quite a few recon aircraft to CAP, but for what I got in return, I'll happily lose them again.

I would be skeptical of these results. I've seen more than one attack come back with highly inflated results. July, 1942 seems really early to have built up Ndeni to such a level to support that much air force. As well, 200 P-40Es could easily be the vast bulk of the total allotment of that airframe to date. Does the USMC/USN even get 80 F4F-3s throughout the war?? While the results would be inline with a heavily overstacked airfield, I am suspicious of the results based on how ridiculously unwise it would be to stack that much air on one bombardment vulnerable base in mid '42; not to mention the said improbability of building up a large airfield on Ndeni that early.

I've gotten results like that from the Allied side, bombarding large airbases like Rabaul or Timor bases with BB's and CA's. Don't think I've destroyed 300+ planes though; my max was around 180, mostly Bettys and Zeros.

Daytime recon after this visit by the IJN Combined Fleet indicate 100% airfield damage, and according to the intelligence screen almost 100 Allied aircraft were destroyed.

quote:

ORIGINAL: aphrochine

I would be skeptical of these results. I've seen more than one attack come back with highly inflated results. July, 1942 seems really early to have built up Ndeni to such a level to support that much air force. As well, 200 P-40Es could easily be the vast bulk of the total allotment of that airframe to date.

I don't interpret the combat reports that way. I agree, there's no way there were 202 P-40E's on Ndeni. What the report is saying is that 23 P-40E's were destroyed, but any number of aircraft were damaged 179 times. One aircraft could have been hit multiple times and not destroyed, or a number of aircraft were damaged 179 times resulting in 23 being destroyed. Damage is not per plane, but rather the number of hits sustained in total by that particular aircraft type at the base.

How big is Ndeni's airbase? Was it overstacked?

Regardless, I tend to believe the numbers of destroyed aircraft. So a nice bombardment indeed.

I don't interpret the combat reports that way. I agree, there's no way there were 202 P-40E's on Ndeni. What the report is saying is that 23 P-40E's were destroyed, but any number of aircraft were damaged 179 times. One aircraft could have been hit multiple times and not destroyed, or a number of aircraft were damaged 179 times resulting in 23 being destroyed. Damage is not per plane, but rather the number of hits sustained in total by that particular aircraft type at the base.

I agree with the above. Damaged aircraft aren't counted as intuition would lead you to suspect. Intuitively, one would assume that '10 planes shot down, 25 damaged' means exactly that-10 a?c downed and 25 damaged, it isn't so in this game. I can understand it somewhat in A2A combat, as the fluid and hectic nature of aerial combat could easily lead to multiple pilots claiming to damage the same A/C several times, with one (or more) claiming the A/C as destroyed. Somewhat harder to believe is that bombing missions are treated the same way. Damage done to a/c facilities on the ground was generally not attributable to any individual A/C, instead post strike photos would reveal the overall effectiveness of the strike, and allow for a more accurate accounting of the damages inflicted. Naval bombardment kind of falls in the middle of the two, since it could be difficult to tell who fired what particular shell on the target, especially with multiple ships involved in the attack. A night time bombardment should yield little intel at all IMO, as other than secondary explosions and the uneven lighting from star shells, they was no way to truly tell how effective a bombardment was.

In general I feel that the level of intel given, and the accuracy of that intel, is way to high. While A/C immediately destroyed over a friendly airbase are fairly easy to count, any A/C lost pre or post strike would be hard to determine accurately, especially in the pacific where the downed A/C could sink and disappear. One other annoyance is that you generally know exactly which ship you are attacking as you attack it, by name. I'd prefer a report saying 'D3A val dive bombing Yorktown Class CV' than 'bombing USS Enterprise'. Or '1st Marine Div attacking enemy 5000 enemy troops' rather than specific naming of the exactly what troops down to their type. That's probably just me though, and I do understand that it's a game.

One thing I do when analyzing Aircraft damaged reports is divide the number by 4. So '10 betties shot down and 10 damaged' becomes '10 betties downed and 2 damaged' With Japanese fighter armament being what it is you may even want to use a higher integer, especially against 4E A/C. Maybe something like 6 or even 10 if they are attacked by Nates or early oscars. Just my 2 cents, regardless it is a damned depressingly effective bombardment to be sure ;)

IRL, the Japanese pulled one highly successful naval bombardment using BBs over the course of the war: against Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. They used the 30 kt Kongo class ships. Running those ships flat out they were able to get in and get out without risking the ships to either pre-bombardment or post-bombardment air attack (should the bombardment not be all that effective-an unknown for planning purposes until it was done).

Here we have 5 BBs capable of only 25 kts (should they go over a waterfall) participating in such a bombardment. Apparently there were no pre-bombardment air attacks. It seems that the once in a war success of a particular class of ships has been generalized to all Japanese ships. In my most recent PBEM it seems that this is true since my airbases have quite routinely been bombarded by the likes of ISE, HYUGA, FUSO, and YAMASHIRO. I have to add that HYUGA, apparently assigned a mission of this sort was...ah...decommissioned recently. Seems that the secret base at Shangri-La had not been previously located along its route. There was no participation in the decommissioning ceremonies by the bombers at the apparent target of the bombardment however

IRL, if the OOBs for the game is close to accurate, then the Marines at G-canal were likely flying SBD-1s and SBD-2s early in the campaign: both of which had shorter range than the SBD-3. Perhaps that is the reason the Japanese got away with their bombardment rather than any particular general capability of their BBs. Reading the TROMs of various Japanese ships at Combined Fleet it becomes apparently quite quickly that IJN ships on bombardment and fast transport missions were not at all immune to air attacks, particularly as the campaign went on and on. Two DDs on an FT mission were killed by air attack on the day before the famous/infamous bombardment in fact.

Another facet that should weigh on the IJN is fuel consumption. Running ships flat out uses tremendous amounts of fuel. A ship that might steam for 20 days at 15kts will burn its entire load of fuel in 1-2 days at 30 kts. For an Empire with a general shortage of tankers how is it that the Japanese Player finds it so easy to constantly and routinely forward-deploy a fleet that IRL, spent all but a few days of the whole war standing anchor watches at Kure.

Frankly, I have not seen much correlation between bombardment results, and initial detection. The only thing I am sure is that first bombardment is MUCH beter, than any later (in short amount of time).

quote:

ORIGINAL: gmoney

One thing I do when analyzing Aircraft damaged reports is divide the number by 4. So '10 betties shot down and 10 damaged' becomes '10 betties downed and 2 damaged' With Japanese fighter armament being what it is you may even want to use a higher integer, especially against 4E A/C. Maybe something like 6 or even 10 if they are attacked by Nates or early oscars.

I would not be completely sure abouth those damages. It is possible, that planes are indeed damaged in this number, but amount of it is so low, that they become repaired immediately

quote:

ORIGINAL: spence

Another facet that should weigh on the IJN is fuel consumption. Running ships flat out uses tremendous amounts of fuel. A ship that might steam for 20 days at 15kts will burn its entire load of fuel in 1-2 days at 30 kts. For an Empire with a general shortage of tankers how is it that the Japanese Player finds it so easy to constantly and routinely forward-deploy a fleet that IRL, spent all but a few days of the whole war standing anchor watches at Kure.

Fuel consumption for normal speed operations is quite historical. Ships have both historical ranges, and fuel capacities. It may be low during high speed operations, but for sure KB can suck dry any base in one go.

Yes, all the floatplanes on the Bombardment taffy were set to Night mode and Recon, but as you see from the Combat Report only the E8N2 Dave unit on one of the battleships actually "spotted".

But the detection level was very high. I had basically swarmed the island in the day phase prior with almost 80 aircraft on recon. I lost quite a few recon aircraft to CAP, but for what I got in return, I'll happily lose them again.

there's really no need to use 80 recon aircraft for a single base. Use one unit and after two days you will have your detection level on max.

Yes, all the floatplanes on the Bombardment taffy were set to Night mode and Recon, but as you see from the Combat Report only the E8N2 Dave unit on one of the battleships actually "spotted".

But the detection level was very high. I had basically swarmed the island in the day phase prior with almost 80 aircraft on recon. I lost quite a few recon aircraft to CAP, but for what I got in return, I'll happily lose them again.

there's really no need to use 80 recon aircraft for a single base. Use one unit and after two days you will have your detection level on max.

OTOH .. the onomatopoeia "click" "Click" "click" .... and multiple flashes of what looks like to me multiple camera lenses and the sacrifice of recon planes during the combat replay should demonstrate the interest in the target .. [;)]